iceagefandomcom-20200222-history
Cretaceous
'Cretaceous ' was an IchthyosaurIce Age: The Essential Guide, p39: "Cretaceous" that hunted animals during the ice age. Biography Cretaceous and his fellow sea reptile Maelstrom hunted down whatever animals they could, swimming through bodies of water to catch them. The Ice Age Long ago, during the days of the dinosaurs, Cretaceous and another seaborne reptile named Maelstrom were frozen in ice, stuck within for millions of years. After those millions of years, however, the great block of ice that contained both reptiles was jarred loose when the wall of ice that it was attached to began crumbling. The ice melted, releasing both Maelstrom and Cretaceous into the lake which was all but abandoned by most animals. When they made it to the ice lake, the first animal that they had encountered and eaten was Stu the Glyptodont, leaving behind only his shell and swimming off further through the lakes after their meal. The two sea reptiles then swam further down the series of rivers where they eventually reached a herd of animals led by a mammoth named Manny, consisting of a ground sloth named Sid, a Smilodon named Diego, another mammoth named Ellie and a pair of opossums named Crash and Eddie. Maelstrom made the first move, breaking through the ice as Cretaceous joined in the chase, going after Manny, trapping him on an ice floe and slithering after him. Manny then saw that the ice block they were floating on was tipping because of Manny's weight. Taking advantage of this, Cretaceous made a great lunge at Manny, but was caught on his tusks, and flung far off, hitting a piece of ice and falling back into the water. Knowing they could not catch the mammals on land, the two reptiles leered angrily at them and sunk below the waters. Demise Later, when the dam broke, the two reptiles went swimming on the wall of water that was slowly approaching towards the escaping masses of animals. Both Cretaceous and Maelstrom pulled down Manny when he was swimming to save Ellie. Manny devised a plan to rid himself of the two sea reptiles, by having them try to chase him, he tricked them into hitting a log that was wedged under a large rock. The plan worked, freeing Ellie, and the boulder came down on the two reptiles. Traits Cretaceous, like his larger companion Maelstrom, was incapable of speech and so communicated in loud growls, hisses or roars. Cretaceous was a large ichthyosaur, thickly built with an elongated snout lined with many pointed teeth ideal for slicing into prey, faintly glowing yellow eyes, a spiny sail and tail equipped with a long fishlike fin, and armour-like purple scales that were topped off with small spikes and bumps. Cretaceous propelled through the icy waters with two strong front legs and two small hind fins, the former of which could be used to haul himself on land or onto any surface should the need arise. Appearances *''Ice Age: The Meltdown **Ice Age 2: The Meltdown (video game)'' *''Ice Age: The Great Escape'' Behind the Scenes Maelstrom is revealed to be an Ichthyosaur in the Essential Guide, though his appearance is altered for artistic purposes, as actual ichthyosaurs had less pointed dorsal fins, little or no neck, no plating, a more streamlined body, proportionate fins and a dolphin-like snout. The sounds used for Cretaceous and Maelstrom's vocalizations were those of whales, coupled with tigers hunting and human voices to give an eerie quality. Initially, according to director Carlos Saldanha, there were to be three water-based predators, and concept art showed a small, amphibian creature similar to an axolotl. Moreover, Saldanha intended the two reptiles to be truly dangerous foes, a feat accomplished by having them kill off one character so as to prove their threat: Stu. The fate of both Cretaceous and Maelstrom remains unclear: while it is overt that they were vanquished by Manny, different sources present different endings, with the storybook of the film showing them being eyed by vultures while the Essential Guide stated that they were eaten off by Mini-Sloths. Cretaceous, in the online game Ice Age Village, is erroneously referred to as a Metriorhynchus. Notes and references Category:Aquatic Reptiles Category:Female Category:Characters in Ice Age: The Meltdown Category:Deceased